


Cinderella

by ladyflamingo



Series: Wild Horses [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Definitely an AU, F/F, Light Angst, Reunions, Season 7 AU, The Ball, Trauma leads to strong magic, worst spies ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 16:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyflamingo/pseuds/ladyflamingo
Summary: Drizella and Henry go to the Ball, and it ends in a family reunion.





	Cinderella

**Author's Note:**

> It's been so long, and but it's really nice to write for fun and feel excited. This AU never left my head. There's a bit of a time jump.

When Regina leaves on one of her secret mission, it takes quite a while for the three of them to regroup. In the meantime, the empty space is filled with various misadventures that Drizella can’t help but find thrilling (but that she’d never admit to Henry or his foolhardy friend, Jack). She pretends to be asleep and Henry works magic on the ropes tying them together.

“Any minute now,” she sing-songs under her breath.

“Under three, actually,” Henry whispers back, the binds loosening. He turns to her with a lopsided smile and her cheeks hurt from trying not to smile back. They’d been tied together, back to back, and now that they’re free the dankness of the dungeon seems so far away, and all she can see are his long eyelashes and that stupid smile. Which fades away, because he’smoving closer to her.

For a moment she remembers where they are, and it’s, _seriously, here?_ Kept in a dungeon miles where they’re supposed to be, waiting for the King’s men to take them to a real, more disgusting prison, or you know, the _rats_. But then Henry’s hand cups her jaw, his eyes flick from hers, to her mouth, and back up again, and then it's, _sure, anytime. Anywhere in any world with as long as it’s with you—_

There’s a long whistle from the door, and Jack is there with his eyebrows to his hairline, a grin on his face, a little breathless from knocking out guards, “Do you want me to come back later? Maybe a couple of minutes, so you guys can get it on before the King’s men take you to prison from treason? Should I leave and tell everyone in the Resistance you couldn’t make the ball because—“

“Alright!” Henry yells at the same time Drizella flicks her hand and the cell door slams open, making Jack jump.

She stands up, red-faced and refusing to look at either of them, “Shall we?”

—

Drizella cannot help but think about how her perfect-kind-of-perfect moment had been ruined, and how she couldn’t possibly care less. Because, in this moment, it’s all about taking down her mother. She feels like a true hero in the Resistance, like Robin Hood, from Henry’s book of stories. She feels pride like a pretty stranger in her chest, stronger than the mightiest giant, happy even going through the roads on the motorcycle in dirty clothes.

They stop a a ways away, to go over plans and prepare. They just keep an eye on things. "Recon," is what Henry called it. That’s all. But this part is on her. She’s been trying for days, and she’s got it almost perfect.

She closes her eyes. It’s easier than she pictured in her mind already. What Henry would look like if he dressed like the gallant prince she thought him when she let her mind wander. What she would look like beside him if she let her mind wander more. Her skin tingles, she faintly hears Henry’s, “Whoa.” And opens her eyes. She has a full lilac dress, her bodice has jewels, and her finger are gloved, she reaches up and there’s a tiara on her head for the first time in what feels like _forever_. She honestly feels strange, it’s nice, but not quite her anymore. Not completely.

But when she looks at Henry, in his dashing aubergine doublet, he’s looking at her. Like he’s never seen anything like her. She can’t help but smile. Like she’d thought he’d look at her, when her mind wandered further and further.

She lifts a haughty eyebrow, trying to look unaffected and professional, “Well, we have to look the part.”

_“True…” _he replies, still staring at her.

“And we’ll need to hurry, this spell only last til midnight.”

He visibly stills, and then frowns, “Wait…what did you say?” Henry walks toward her in genuine interest.

She pulls a face and says slower, “The spell only last until midnight. So, let’s get _back on the bike.”_

Henry huffs out a laugh, a couple, in fact, and then looks at her fondly, “Of course it does. Don’t leave your shoe behind, or at least, if you do, leave it where I can pick it up.”

Drizella crosses her arms, “Henry, what are you even talking about?”

“…read the _book_.”

—

She almost forgets the mission, she’s too busy dancing with him. Staring into his dark eyes, life is like a song and the two of them are just quite but not yet two people so close to falling, like she fell into his arms that day. The ball seems like some other strange life. She would be talking to the Prince, trying to marry into royalty, trying to please her mother, trying to be better, prettier, but now. Right now she’s just smiling up at Henry.

And it’s almost perfect until she catches sight of a ghost.

She spins them around until she’s spun out of his arms, ignoring his distressed noise. Because he has to see it, he can see that, right?

He can, he walks past her before veering to the right. Drizella’s heart beats faster as she veers to the left, she wonders if she can run without being conspicuous, but Henry catches her eye and stands in front of the Prince to engage in over the top, nervous conversation and she grabbed her sister’s wrist, hard.

With their mother talking to both the Prince and Henry, and Drizella grabbing Ella, her face almost white with alarm, it’s the perfect family reunion.

“Wha…” Ella breathes out, “You’re supposed to be dead.”

Drizella wants to shake her, “Not yet!” she says with a hard smile, and pulls her to the terrace.

She wretches the dagger away and throws it to the floor. They both look at each other, the air heavy as stone. Drizella has thought about the moment a lot. If she ever saw her sister again, if she could face her, she’d apologize, she’d thought. She’d blame Mother for everything. She’d try to make Ella understand that she just wanted to be loved, and to do that she had to do terrible things. She’d call herself a coward and beg for forgiveness. She tell her Anastasia wouldn’t want them to hate each other.

But, holding back her tears, all she can say is, “That’s a really nice dress. Blue looks good on you. Great for committing regicide.”

Ella stares with her mouth open, shaking her head in disbelief, before tears fall from her eyes and she pulls Ella into a hug too strong for her thin frame, and Drizella can tell her all of those things later, she promises.

She pulls away, angry and crying, “You walked out in the middle of the night, no one could find you…you were so sick we just thought—we thought….”

That’s when Drizella smiles, “I’m fine now. I’m great now.”

“What happened—“

She waves her hands, “Later. Ella. You can’t be here. It’s not safe. Come with us.” This was it. Ella would come with her, and Drizella would take her away from their evil mother and she’d forgive her instantly.

Ella frowns, _“Us?”_

It’s at that moment Henry joins them on the terrace, backing into their direction, and saluting the Prince and his company, he turns around and his face is one of alarm, “Could we not have switched targets, I mean, that was…_painful_.”

Drizella shook her head, “No, definitely not. This is my sister, Ella. Ella, meet my—meet Henry.”

Ella holds out her hand for Henry to shake. And despite her blunder Drizella is too busy to pay attention to anyway but the way the two of them are looking at each other.

“Ella,” is what Henry says, intrigued, not a question, but a certainty.

Drizella covers up her embarrassment by rolling her eyes, “Yes, I know, he’s strange.”

Henry fixes her with a look, one of the ones that’s just them, between just them, and it lift her spirits a bit.

But they all lift their heads when the bell tolls.

“Midnight,” they all say at once, and things happen too quickly for Drizella. There’s screaming from inside the palace, the guards start to approach the terrance. Henry pulls out his sword, Ella picks up her dagger, and when Drizella connects eyes with the mother, time stops. She feels like she’s in that bed, going to war again for her heart, only there’s no Henry to hold her, no Regina or Emma. There’s only the fact that she could have died, that her own mother tried to kill her. Was she that worthless to her? Was she that unworthy of love? So weak?

And she’s helpless to that helplessness, helpless to the storm, to the anger. and her mother is opening to her mouth, eyes wide—

In her head she thinks, as a tear slips down her cheek, as she looks into her mother’s hazel eyes, _’I’ll show you weak’_. Her hands are moving up on their own volition, and she’s a bit far away, but she thinks she heard glass shattering.

—

When she wakes up, she’s laying in one of the tents at the resistance sites.

“You had me worried, you know.” says a voice, and when Drizella opens her eyes, and Henry’s there, seated next to her of course he is, she hopes he always will be.

“Well, I’m nothing if not consistent,” she quips, tries to move, but finds that she’s tired. Really quite tired. And Drizella also finds that she can’t even remember what happened past looking into her mother’s eyes.

“I’m serious,” he says lowly, and strokes her hair. They look at each other in silence for a moment. “You fainted after...um, and I picked you up…jumped off the _balcony _and into the lake—”

_“Excuse me?” Her hair is still damp._

He grins, “Well, it’s not like we could go through the front door! Man. Jack was so jealous when I told him.”

She decides to ignore the part where Jack saw her fainted in Henry’s arms like damsel-in-distress.

“Ella!” she whispers suddenly, “Where’s my sister?”

Henry’s smile drops, and lifts a little again, trying to make her feel better, “Ella left, Drizella. I’m sorry.“

“I don’t blame her. If I were her, I wouldn’t want to be with me either,” she allows herself to feel the loss of Ella, the guilt, all of it, finally, “I was awful to her. I’m not _good_,” she says vehemently, I’ll never be _good_. I’m an awful person. A worse sister. ”

And those soft eyes look at her like he understands, “If my mom were here she’d tell you that it's never too late to change things. Never too late to forgive,” he takes a deep breath and presses his lips against her forehead and whispers, “But,_ I’m_ going to tell you that you’re the most amazing person I know. And I actually know like, a _lot _of people."

She can hear the smile at the end of his words and she laughs a little. A tear falls along her temple and his thumb catches it. Won’t he shut up? Won’t he stop with that?

He opens up an old, word knapsack next to him, and pulls out a glass slipper, gleaming in the single candle . It’s one of the most prettiest pieces of footwear she’s ever seen, marked with gems, smooth and artful. She looks at him with a raised brow.

“See, I thought I knew this story,” Henry tells her with a determined gleam in his eye, “But I have a feeling you and I should rewrite it.”

He hands her the beautiful glass slipper and lays down so they are shoulder to shoulder. She takes it, turning it this way and that way to catch the warm light.

"Did I forget to tell you how beautiful you looked tonight?" 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're still reading, thank you! Let me know what you think. If you like, if you think I should go back into my cave and never come back out.


End file.
